


priorities

by ballerinaroy



Series: nineteen years later seems pretty far away [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballerinaroy/pseuds/ballerinaroy
Summary: When Hermione was fourteen her greatest fear was failing at school. It seemed rather trivial considering everything that had happened since.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Series: nineteen years later seems pretty far away [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1263350
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	priorities

At first, she’d thought it was the rattling window that had broken her concentration. But when Hermione flicked her wand so all the windows in the drawing room shut even more firmly, the rattling had continued. She’d tried to ignore it, things were always creaking in the house, but the owls were downstairs and she’d spied Crookshanks napping in their bedroom at Grimmauld Place when she’d changed after work.

Against her better judgment, she went towards the source of the noise, drawing her wand and holding it tightly in her hand as she approached the back corner of the room where a cabinet continued to rattle.

“I swear if this is one of you playing a prank,” Hermione said in a voice that quivered despite trying to sound firm. But she knew Ron and Harry wouldn’t be playing a prank on her, not like this. Besides, they were at work, due home any time now.

The rattling stopped as she got closer, the cabinet looking deceptively ordinary.

“It’s probably just a mouse,” Hermione muttered to herself.

The months they had been away from Grimmauld place hadn’t been kind to the old home. The death eaters had ransacked the place, leaving plenty of surprises of their own before abandoning it. It had taken months for Bill to give the house a clean bill of health, and it was only under duress that they’d left the flat to once again take refuge in the old home. Not that Hermione was convinced they were going to stay. She didn’t think any of them felt particularly comfortable here.

Summoning her courage with a deep breath, she planted a hand firmly on the brass handle, her wand poised at the ready. A gust of wind rustled her robe as her wand light scoured quickly over the contents but it was full of the same odds and ends that had been there the last time they had gone through it. Hermione gave a shaky laugh as her breathing returned to normal.

There was a heavy layer of dust on the texts Hermione noted as she leaned down to examine them. Her wand light danced over the titles but before she could decipher what they were, a loud pop echoed from behind her.

Startled, Hermione whipped around and nearly fell to her knees at the sight before her. Huddled on the ground, both of them covered in blood, Harry was cradling Ron’s unmoving body in his arms.

“Hermione,” Harry croaked, his voice painfully broken as she remained frozen in place. “Hermione, I couldn’t save him—“

Tears were falling down Harry’s face, cutting through the grime that coated it. As he spoke a dark substance began to leak from his nose.

“Hermione help me,” he begged, reaching for her with one hand, “Hermione please.”

Frozen in the shock, Hermione stared at them, blood pooling on the carpet.

“Please—” Harry whispered again, his voice in agony, his normally bright eyes muted.

Before she could gather herself he collapsed, shaking violently on top of Ron who hadn’t so much as twitched. Harry let out a horrible, croaking noise as a final breath was exhaled from his body and he ceased all movement.

“No, no no,” Hermione murmured, trying to get her legs to move forward but she was unable to will them. When she tried to take a step, her legs gave out under her and she collapsed on the floor her wand slipping from her fingers and rolling away. “No no no.”

This couldn’t be real. They had been at the ministry, in training, not in the field. She had seen them on break, they were due home any time now. They were going to change before going to dinner at the Burrow, they had plans. This couldn’t be real.

Hermione drug herself across the carpet on her hands and knees. They still had not moved, skin becoming pale and ashy as the blood pooled around them, staining the carpet. Her hands trembled as she reached out to touch Ron’s hand. It was stone cold. Her vision blurred as she grasped his face, shaking him.

“Ron,” her voice hurt her throat as she croaked his name, tilting Harry’s head to better look at his face. His head felt heavy, unwilling to move. “Harry.”

The color was fading from Harry’s face as the sticky substance pooled on his upper lip. She knew she had to call someone, someone had to be able to help them. Someone would be able to fix this. They couldn’t just be dead. Not now.

Her wand seemed impossibly far away, out of her reach across the room but she was too afraid to let go of them, afraid they’d disappear. She reached, crying violently now as her wand remained just far enough away that her outstretched fingertips could not grasp it.

“Accio,” she tried, her voice trembling but her wand stayed stubbornly out of reach.

Her throat felt raw and painful as she howled, laying her head onto Ron’s chest. It was still except for her own trembling, tears splashing down onto his chest. This couldn’t be true.

Downstairs a door slammed. She should have known they would be coming. Far away, someone was calling her name. If she were to defend herself she knew she needed her wand and at that moment was faced with the decision. Avenge them or join them. They had won the war. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She simply wanted to lie there, die there with them.

The footsteps were thundering up the stairs now, her fate was coming closer and closer. She groped blindly for her wand, the tears staining her face making it almost impossible to see. Whoever had gotten them was coming for her and though she didn’t want to go on she couldn’t let whoever committed this crime go on. She would not go down without a fight. 

“I’m sorry,” she hissed, her body aching as her fingers left their cold skin, scrambling for her wand as the footsteps grew louder. She’d just wrapped her fingers around the base when the door burst open and she thrust her wand in the intruder’s direction.

Panting, someone stumbled into the room and for the second time, Hermione froze.

“Ron?” she breathed, certain her eyes were tricking her as the breathless figure in the doorway too seemed too stunned to move.

Her eyes went back to the version of him on the floor only to find the bodies had changed, replacing the Ron she’d been sobbing over with a version of herself. She somehow looked more beautiful lying there, her hairs defined and features softer than she saw in the mirror though painfully ethereal. The lifeless form was wearing the same clothes she’d donned the night they’d escaped Malfoy Manor, the now thin scar on her neck fresh and oozing blood. Beside her was the Harry they had witnessed Hagrid carrying back into the fray of battle, he too looked painfully small and broken.

“Hermione,” Ron croaked, gripping the doorway with one hand, his eyes darting back and forth between the two.

She was still trying to comprehend the scene when Harry appeared in the doorway, equally breathless and again the scene changed, Ginny added now. Her eyes were red, face covered in tears as she stared mutinously at Harry over Ron and Hermione’s lifeless bodies.

“It’s a boggart,” Ron said just as Hermione was coming to the same conclusion.

He had crossed the room to her without taking his eyes off of the creature. It was now flickering as if it couldn’t decide who it should target, horrible versions of all of them, all painful to look at and maimed. Ron picked her off the ground as the creature flickered briefly to a living version of her parents, looking just as disappointed in her as Ginny looked at Harry.

“It’s a boggart,” Harry repeated tonelessly as Ron half drug, half carried her over to the doorway, thrusting her behind them both. “R-riddikulus.”

For a moment the creature flickered into smoke but in the next moment returned an even more gruesome version of Ginny, half blasted apart.

“Riddikulus,” Ron repeated, his wand arm shaking.

“It has to be something f-funny,” Hermione instructed, “It’ll only disappear if we laugh at it.”

“Riddikulus,” Harry repeated, advancing on the creature and he let out a barking laugh. “Riddikulus.”

He seemed to be trying to intimidate it by brute force alone and the creature switched targets, again focusing on Ron, this time transforming into a spider.

“Do you really think that’s my greatest fear?” Ron said with a shaky laugh, “Riddikulus.”

At once the spider began to harden, transforming into chocolate. Ron let out another laugh, sounding only slightly more real. The boggart shifted again, to Harry’s fear of them both lying at his feet.

“Riddikulus,” Harry hissed and they were wearing birthday hats and some of the moth-eaten quidditch robes they’d found in the attic that the boys had found utterly amusing.

Their forced laughter was just enough and, finally, the boggart disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

“Well,” Ron said weakly, his hands still gripping at her tightly. It would have been painful except Hermione was quite certain she would be sprawled on the ground if it weren’t for him supporting her. “Glad to know your priorities are bigger than failing a test, Hermione.”

She let out a shaky laugh, putting her arms around his middle and burying her face in his chest for a moment. When she’d sufficiently smeared her tears onto his robe and managed to control her breathing she emerged. Ron was staring at her worriedly and Harry still at the place where the boggart had vanished from. She tried to think of something to say, to get Harry to turn back towards them and assure him that they were okay, that their fears had been just as horrible but never realized, but could think of nothing. 

“There was one in here before,” Harry said, crossing the room over to the cabinet where Hermione now knew it had been hiding in. He wasn’t bothering to hide the emotion in his voice. He never did around them, not anymore. “Back when this was headquarters. Lupin vanquished it.”

“You can’t really vanquish them,” Hermione told him, pictures from the textbook they’d had in the third year coming to her aid. “You can vanish them for a time, but they aren’t really living or dead, like ghosts or dementors. They grow back.”

Harry frowned, looking finally back at her. “So what? It’ll just come back every few years?”

Hermione didn’t know what to say and she could still feel herself trembling. Unwittingly they both looked to Ron who shrugged.

“As long as we don’t give it anything to feed off of it’ll stay away,” Ron said logically, “So as long as there’s no brooding in here, and no one approaches a rattling cabinet alone—“ He looked down at her sternly.“—then it shouldn’t come back anytime soon.”

He gave her another squeeze and looked pointedly at Harry. “Firewiskey I should think.”

Harry nodded, giving up his examination of the cabinet and shutting the doors with more force than strictly necessary. He crossed the room to the liquor cabinet and kept his back to them as he prepared drinks. Hermione felt she should break the silence, that she should talk about what they’d seen but she wasn’t sure there was much to say at any rate. Hermione forced a smile on her face, wishing suddenly to be fourteen again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out on [Tumblr](https://ballerinaroy.tumblr.com/) for drabbles and more Romione goodness.


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